Shorty Working in the C & R Statuary Corp.

Rigoberto Torres American, born Puerto Rico
1985
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Torres was a frequent collaborator of John Ahearn’s, and the two artists share a visual vocabulary. At work in the statuary factory in New York run by Torres’s uncle Raúl Arce, the tattooed and mustached Shorty intently focuses on refining a mass-produced figure of the Virgin. By taking the sculptor at work as his subject, Torres also transforms this piece into an allegorical self-portrait.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Shorty Working in the C & R Statuary Corp.
  • Artist: Rigoberto Torres (American, born Puerto Rico, Aguadilla 1960)
  • Date: 1985
  • Medium: acrylic on plaster
  • Dimensions: 29 × 24 × 11 1/2 in., approx. 40 lb. (73.7 × 61 × 29.2 cm, approx. 18.1 kg)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Collection of El Museo del Barrio, New York. Gift of John Ahearn, 2014
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Rigoberto Torres
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art